For twelve years, my spouse has wished for me to join him in his long-distance cycling hobby. For twelve years, my response has been a chuckle and a firm "No thank you!" Then, last summer, a chick I don't like posted photos on Facebook of herself participating in the STP Classic, a two-day, 10,000-person ride from Seattle to Portland. Suddenly, I felt inspired to ride.
So we're in training. We've done two rides so far. Tobias has a little computer on his bike that tells how far we go and how fast. ( Apparently, not fast enough. )
After I decided that we should do the ride, but before we actually registered, I went to a Solstice party full of cyclists. The host was a former co-worker that does the STP every year. I mentioned that Tobias and I were planning to do it in 2010.
"Wow! Do you guys ride together a lot?"
"No, not really. He's a randonneur--"
"Whoa ho ho! A randonneur! Those guys are fucking crazy."
"Really? But you all do long rides. Probably long enough to be randonneurs."
"Long yes, but not randonneuring long. They do 1000km at a stretch!"
"Oh, well, Tobias isn't that kind of randonneur. Not yet anyway."
"So you ride too?"
"Just to work."
"You don't do touring?"
"Nope, just Tobias."
"So you're a commuter, and he's a randonneur, and you're planning on doing the STP together?"
At this point, four sets of eyes were on me. Everyone had glasses in their hands but no one was drinking.
"Yes, I think so. Why not?"
Raised eyebrows. Incredulous smiles.
"Well, that's a marriage breaker, is all I'm saying. If you don't want a divorce, you do the ride separately. Otherwise, whooo-boy, there's gonna be some fighting."
"Huh. Yeah, I guess you're right. I don't really enjoy riding with him. He's always too fast and I lose sight of him and yeah, we usually end up mad at each other."
"Of course. You wouldn't catch anyone here riding with their spouse. We do the STP, sure, but not together. We break into groups. Otherwise you'd best see a lawyer in advance."
"Yeah, that's a good point. It hasn't been good in the past. Hmmm...."
"You can always meet up in the evening, and have a beer or something."
"Yeah maybe that would be better."
But Tobias is stubborn. He doesn't believe in taking the easy path. Even though he theoretically agrees with the advice of our marriage counsellor ( my dad ), which is "Emphasize the strengths of your relationship, de-emphasize the weaknesses", in practise he is sometimes blind to exactly what our weaknesses are. A hint: trying to do something together when our individual abilities to do that thing are vastly different has not resulted in much success. Ever.
But nevermind! Here we go! Riding together! For four or six or eight hours every Saturday from now until July. The first two rides have gone really, remarkably well. We've gone too slow for his liking, but our distances have been fine. The thing is, he's making a huge effort to stick by me, even though my pace is like molasses to him, and I'm not sure how long he can sustain this. Long enough for me get faster? That could take a while.
